By Rachel Kakraba
The Country Director of Inerela+Ghana, a faith-based Non-Governmental Organisation, Mrs. Mercy Acquah-Hayford, says deep-rooted stigma associated with HIV is contributing to more people, especially children, being affected by the disease.
She said living with the illness, which requires constant medication, is one that needs the support of all, and she encouraged society to embrace people living with HIV.
“Children are becoming positive because pregnant women sometimes when they go to get tested because of stigma, if I go home to tell my partner I will be thrown out. My in-laws will come and sack me, so why don’t I keep quiet and take my medication? If you don’t disclose, taking medication is difficult. You can’t even swallow the thing when your partner is around; you hide in the corners to take it, so you won’t take it regularly, but this thing needs consistency in taking them.”
Mrs. Acquah-Hayford was speaking at a durbar organised by Inerela+Ghana on Gender Based Violence and mental health, and HIV for chiefs, opinion leaders, and queen mothers in Nima and its environs.
Inerela+Ghana is an inter-faith network of religious leaders living with or affected by HIV. It seeks to empower religious leaders through education, knowledge, and skills to become symbols of hope and agents of change to help eliminate stigma and discrimination within their congregations and communities.
She said her outfit is working in three communities in the Greater Accra region to reduce HIV stigma, increase awareness on mental health issues, and Gender-Based Violence.
“We work in three communities because we have funding from UN Women Trust. So we are working with Chokor , James Town and Nima. When we came the chief told us that the community lacks HIV sensitization looking at the population here.”
She was hopeful that the implementation of the 95- 95- 95 on HIV will yield the needed results.
“Holding unto the 95 95 95, we hope to get there. So when we screen 95 percent of the population, put them on medication and check their viral load we will get there.”
A certified psychologist, Mrs. Paulina Louisa Essel, described as worrying an increase in mental health issues in the country. She said people with mental health conditions must be assisted to seek medical care.
“Mental health issues are on the rise, people are having issues with depression or they cannot cope with stress, anger, and all that; they come to the office and they are off. We need to help them access medication because if you leave them, the situation worsens.”
She added, “We should stop stigmatising them; they feel isolated, hopeless, and sometimes they feel the world has come to an end and they should end their lives, and it doesn’t help.
Mrs. Essel said although a lot of sensitization has been done on HIV, there is still much work to be done with regard to mental health.
“HIV the education has really gone, but when it comes to mental health issues, when you’re physically sick you seek help at the hospital, when you are spiritually sick, you go to the pastor but when you’re mentally sick what happens? Few people take advantage and go to see psychiatrist or a medical doctor. So it seems that aspect we have abandoned it.”
Paramount Chief of Nima, Nii Futa, said he was alarmed by the staggering figures of persons living with HIV in the country. This, he said, calls for an all hands-on-deck approach to contain the disease.
“I know that since COVID, a lot of diseases have been forgotten and if HIV is going at the rate that you say, and we speak to this matter only when there is an anniversary, then we have a big problem. In talking about stigma and the fact that there are drugs that will make you live forever, I think that is very good news.”
“The issue of stigma, which we should all fight, so I would rather prefer that we continue to do a lot of campaigns,” Nii Futa added.
Nii Futa said some fees and charges that victims of Gender Based Violence are required to pay for their cases to be processed need to be reconsidered as they overburden victims and their families.
The Director of Public Education, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Mrs. Nana Yamfoah Amoa-Sekyi, said parents have a responsibility towards the upbringing of their children. This, she said, must be done by seeking the face of God.
“It is our duty as parents to ensure and tell the child that till you’re 18 years old or until you get married, abstain from sex. It is not the duty of the teacher to teach the child sex education, it is the responsibility of parents. In so doing when they hear about such things at school, they are able to decipher which ones to take. So as parents, we have a very huge responsibility.
She added, “when we talk about gender don’t leave the boys out because we know boys are also sexually abused so we should involve all of them.”
The Nima District police commander, Chief Superintendent Eric Asiedu, encouraged residents to always report cases of abuse meted out to them for prompt action.
